


Proximity

by Guinevere137



Series: All my related Valka stories [1]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Introspection, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:08:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22596052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guinevere137/pseuds/Guinevere137
Summary: She has never missed her son's birthday before.
Relationships: Stoick the Vast/Valka
Series: All my related Valka stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1625899
Kudos: 12





	Proximity

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any desire to orient yourself timeline-wise, Hiccup is about four-years-old in this story. It takes place in late April, as Hiccup's birthday is Feb. 29th.  
> As for where, exactly, Valka is, I looked up a map of the Barbaric Archipelago and she is somewhere near the Sullen Sea, probably passing Changewing Island and headed away from what "Dragons: Rise of Berk" refers to as "The Berkery." In short, she's in the southwest corner of the archipelago. I'm just a nerd and looked up the specifics.

During her travels, she’d covered most of the Barbaric Archipelago and as such she’d had the opportunity to celebrate many a Viking tradition in a myriad of settings. Despite having such opportunities presented for a few summers now, however, she had never indulged, making excuses to herself and to those inviting her. 

“I must continue my journey,” she’d told many a flirtatious Viking.

“I have a husband,” she’d told others. (Mostly true, though the statement’s truth was starting to fade.) 

“Come now, Cloudjumper,” she’d laugh when he looked at her like that. “The longer I stay in villages, the higher of a chance we’ll be discovered. Drago and his men are enough of a fucking problem—we don’t need the entire Archipelago on our asses as well.” 

(She didn’t remember when she’d started swearing like that—her mother must surely be shaking her head from Vanaheim. Her father, she figures, is cursing the dragons’ influence on her from Valhalla. She knows, as well, that Stoick would never have approved.) 

She figures (though she’s too tired these days to do the actual math) that she must have been traveling with Cloudjumper for four Summers now. If Hiccup has survived this long, he’s likely just had his first real birthday celebration on his first real birthday in four Summers. That birthday came and went nearly two moons ago, and she hadn’t even noticed.

She has never missed her son’s birthday before. 

That realization hits her almost as hard as the knowledge that, according to a map she stole from a trader’s ship three nights prior, she is less than a day’s flight from Berk. This is the closest to her childhood home she has been since home became the Far North, near the Temple of Nifl and the Shivering Shores. 

A weird sense of fear settles in her stomach, and she sits back on Cloudjumper. Her arms go limp at her sides, and if it weren’t for the instinctive pressure that she keeps on him with her knees, she’d have fallen right off. 

“Let’s go home,” she suggests over the wind. She uses Norse so very rarely these days, as she really doesn’t need it with the dragons and only encounters humans ever three to four moons. Seeing as her last encounter was just a couple of nights ago, she “quota” for Norse has been fulfilled. 

Cloudjumper isn’t stupid, and he senses that something is off with his rider immediately. He changes direction, headed north again, and she relaxes. After a few moments however she’s tense again because Berk is north of here, and moving this direction means moving over, near, or around, the island she once looked at fondly, but now regarded with fear.  
Fear. It stemmed mostly from a desire to keep Cloudjumper safe, but there was a huge and undeniable part of her that fear the repercussions of her being caught; of her being seen. Should someone—anyone—in the village see her, they would sure as Hel know her face. They’d go to Stoick, and shit, as she’d heard the Berserkers say, would hit the Terrible Terrors. 

No. She couldn’t run the risk of being seen, and it was for that reason and that reason alone that she pressed Cloudjumper a little too far west as they neared the island. Her companion cooed in confusion—he often preferred straight, simple flight paths, but the straight, simple flight path would take them directly over the center of Berk. 

“It’s alright,” she murmured to him, patting his back as they passed over a series of Viking longboats bearing the Hairy Hooligan insignia. “Higher, higher,” she urged him cautiously. The higher they got, the further from the bolas they’d be, and the better off everyone would be in the long run. 

***

From the deck of the lead longboat, the Hairy Hooligan heir stared at the distant dragon in wonder, mouth agape as he tried to discern its species. Stoick the Vast followed his son’s gaze, but the beast was far too high to make out clearly, so with a grunt and a shake of his head, he turned his attention back to Hiccup


End file.
